The terms “Buffer” and “Surface” have been used interchangeably throughout the disclosure and refer to a contiguous linear array of physical RAM.
Electronic display devices can be configured to display videos from multiple sources. For example, a computer is enabled to receive signals from multiple video sources. The computer blends the signals to produce a single video image and provides it to a display monitor.
A configurable interactive device such as computer, Mobile Phone and PDA comprises a Primary Surface (also referred to as the memory buffer) on which the OS/application performs Graphics Operations. In most devices, the Primary Surface is same as the Frame Buffer.
The contents of Frame Buffer/Primary Surface can be manipulated at will by means of read-write-modify operations. The interactive device requires a physical display such as a LCD monitor to display its output. The contents of the frame buffer are translated into screen pixels by a Display Controller/Graphics Card by a process referred to as Rasterization.